Sunday, January 6, 2019

Just like in my other fifty-eight posts in this series, I want to take a second to single out the highlights of my recent film viewing. Most of the films I have been glad to see but only a very few have stayed with me. This series is my filter for those and my hope is one or two will be good to you as well.

Jean-Paul Civeyrac's A Paris Education

It's unfortunate that it is shot on digital black-and-white because if it had the cinematography of Garrel's Regular Loversit would find a place in my small pantheon of truly cherished works. But even as is it's pretty special. It captures some of the poetry of Paris and what the formative years feel like at the fac. That is, time as your captive and endless amounts of it for sitting around among peers, taking walks and formulating dreams for undoing the previous generation's misguided efforts and hopes. The end has a narrative device so brilliantly utilized by Demy in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Kazan in Slendor in the Grass, Rohmer in My Night at Maud's and to perhaps a slightly lesser degree Chazelle in La La Land. And even though the device is familiar, Civeyrac uses it in a way that feels fresh and new. By fast forwarding with Etienne, it is not a particular romance that he is forced to reckon with but an entire view of the world and of himself.

Matt Wolf's Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell

One of those documentaries that immediately convince you to go out and dig into the work of the featured artist. Prior to watching the film, I had only heard one song by Russell and now I am very curious to spend more time seeing what he was all about. He strikes me as part Scott Walker, part Mark Hollis and perhaps part Nick Drake.

Alice Rohrwacher's Happy as Lazzaro

The first film I have seen from the young Italian filmmaker is impressive. The best way I can describe it is a welcome concoction of Kiarostami's feel for the land, Lynch's ability for rupturing time and early Van Sant's poetic sense for the rough and marginal. Based on this film, Rohrwacher is full of talent and tough to categorize. I am very excited to see what she does next.

Amy Scott's Hal

Another documentary, like the recent one I saw on Arthur Russell, that makes you immediately want to dig further into the subject's body of work. As a long time fan of Ashby, Shampoofor instance might be in my all time top ten, I have always been curious to learn more about the filmmaker. Having seen this doc, which I cannot recommend highly enough to any fan of Ashby, I now can't wait to go back and watch all seven of his films from the seventies.